Why is it taking so long to try Nidal Hasan?

In researching today’s column on the 2009 Fort Hood shootings, that killed 13 people, including a pregnant woman, and wounded 32 others, I was able to ask a question that has been bugging me for some time. Why has it taken so long for the military to try accused shooter Nidal Hasan?

As Geoffrey Corn of the South Texas School of Law put it, “It ain’t a whodunit.”

There are many witnesses. Hasan doesn’t deny the charges. To the contrary, he wanted to plead guilty to capital murder, but the law will not allow him to. The Commanding officer will not agree to charges less than capital murder/

I keep asking myself, why isn’t his trial over — instead of yet to be scheduled?

For one thing, there was the beard issue, which as the San Antonio News Express reported, dispatched an earlier judge.

Nidal Hasan, with beard

For another, Corn told me that prosecutors have to be especially cautious because military appellate courts are “unforgiving” when they find error in capital cases.

Army Secretary McHugh says awarding Purple Hearts could adversely affect the trial of Major Hasan.

“To award a Purple Heart, it has to be done by a foreign terrorist element,” said McHugh. “So to declare that soldier a foreign terrorist, we are told, I’m not an attorney and I don’t run the Justice Department, but we’re told would have a profound effect on the ability to conduct the trial.”

In response to this quote, Corn sighed and said, “I think what he’s referring to, and I think there’s merit to it, when you do a criminal trial, there’s value to keeping things as clear and simple as possible.”

Corn thinks, “This was just a self-radicalized lone-wolf criminal. Did he engage in an act of domestic terror? Yes, but so is Timothy McVeigh.” And McVeigh was tried in federal court, not a military tribunal.

I appreciate Corn’s desire for a clean verdict and sentencing, but remain unconvinced. The Obama administration killed Anwar al Awlaki, with whom Hasan was in contact, because he was a terrorist threat. It’s hard to argue that it’s OK to use drones against a terrorist threat, but Awlaki disciple Hasan is not a terrorist.

The Hasan trial will be scheduled soon. Corn thinks it will move cleanly now. I’m in the “wait and see” camp, myself.